by Lee Isserow
Ailes reached for a button by the glass, which squealed softly as it was pressed. “Mister MacGaulty, we're ready for you.”
A door in the white room clicked open, and a large man entered. He was barefoot, wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants that were as white as the room he had entered, making it look as if his large head, and Hobbit-like feet and hands were floating in a bright void. The only thing that shattered the illusion was the shadow under the large man's bushy grey beard, that Ben thought was the type of beard you'd use to smuggle a number of extra chins. A swatch of loose, thin grey hair clung atop his head for dear life, the rest of his shiny dome reflecting the room's light like a mirror ball.
“Ready for the show?” the man asked, with a friendly chuckle.
Ailes pressed the button again. “We are indeed,” he sighed. “Keep it short... and try to limit the shock factor...” his tone was strict, sounded to Ben as if he were tired of this MacGaulty man's attitude. He wondered if there was resentment between the two, because MacGaulty was Ailes' elder, looking at least two decades older, and yet by the way Ailes was instructing him, it appeared as though he was his superior.
“Here we go!” MacGaulty declared with a wide smile, walking right up to the glass. Standing there for a moment, he looked down, perusing something below the frame. Ben took a few steps towards the window and looked down. There was a thin shelf just below the frame, on which several sharp implements were lined up. Pins and needles, scalpels and razor blades, saws and a variety of knives.
A chill ran its way down Ben's spine as the man bounced his finger from one implement to the next, then went back on himself, as if he were playing eenie meenie with the blades.
“Do please hurry up, Mister MacGaulty.” Ailes barked through the loudspeaker.
MacGaulty rolled his eyes and snatched up a scalpel. It glinted in the bright lights of the room as he held it in his hands, turning it over between his fingers.
“You might want to take a step back...” Ailes warned Ben. but Ben was frozen in place. There was terror coursing through his system, he could feel it growing in his gut and pounding through his head. Something awful was about to happen.
MacGaulty smiled down at the sharp edge, changing his grip to hold it firmly between his thumb and middle finger, resting his first finger on top of the dull side, along the length of the handle. He lined it up with his right wrist, and took one last knowing look at the mirror, smiling at his own reflection before putting pressure on the head of the blade, digging it deep into the flabby flesh of his wrist, and wrenching it up, tearing a thin line all the way up to his arm.
The blood spurted out like a fountain, a bright red gush that burst forth, coating the window. Ben felt like he was going to be sick as the crimson stream flowed out of the fat man, his skin losing colour as the vital fluids left him, leaving him a sickly pallor. The smile remained fixed on his face, eyes wide and bright, he seemed to be enjoying every second of this bloodletting.
It was then that Ben noticed the walls and floor of the bright white room were not being stained red with the blood that was being shed. The fluids emerging from the man weren't behaving as they should. They held form together, defying gravity, coalescing in mid-air, rather than hitting the floor. The plasma moved as if it were being held in some kind of misshapen balloon that was quickly growing in size.
MacGaulty turned on the spot, the massive blood balloon turning with him, as if attached to the wrist that was filling its liquid shape. He walked it around the room, as if it were a puppy on a leash, then pushed the floating mass of fluids up against the window, and Ben's jaw dropped along with his stomach. It was his nightmare made flesh.
The crimson form was changing in structure, two darker patches of purple formed at the top, with bright red circles at the centre of each. They looked like demonic eyes staring deep into his soul.
The undulating mass of blood tore itself in half, sinewy strings still connecting the bottom and top halves. They changed colour, from bright red to a dark, solid brown, and gnashed impotently against the glass, like a wild, hungry animal that had been caged for too long.
Ben felt weak, his legs gave out on him and he fell to the floor, the monster at the window snarling sickly gurgles of angry hunger.
“That's quite enough, Mister MacGaulty.” Ailes said through the loudspeaker, looking down at Ben who was shaking, a terrified sweat dripping down his forehead, his eyes fixed on the creature that had haunted his dreams all his life.
MacGaulty's chuckle came through the speaker, and the creature closed its mouth, started shrinking in stature, its eyes disappeared and within moments, it had recessed back into the large man's wrist. “That's what we call a haemogoblin!” he guffawed.
“Shut up, MacGaulty,” Ailes barked. “He doesn't need your humour right now.”
Ben tried desperately to change his breathing. The short, shallow breaths that his lungs were demanding were making him feel light headed. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and held it, then exhaled. Another, and a third, then opened his eyes again.
“Are you ok?” Ailes asked. Ben nodded, unable to force words through his throat. “Good.” Ailes hit the button again. “Show him...”
MacGaulty walked up to the window and raised his wrist. There was no deep laceration in his flesh, and the colour had returned to his skin. The only evidence of his self-inflicted wound was a thin line of bright red blood that clung to the skin. When he sensed his demonstration was over, MacGaulty placed his wrist to his undulating gut and took a bow, as if he had been performing in a ghastly play.
“As I said,” Ailes said, to the pale, shaking wreck of Ben. “You had to see it for yourself...”
24
Ailes sat on the window frame and waited for Ben to recover. He had no knowledge of the nightmares that haunted his new recruit, and seemed displeased at how long it took him to find the strength to get back to his feet.
“It's a bit like a puppy, don't you think?” he said, as he waited for Ben to stop shaking. “A disgusting puppy. An angry, disgusting puppy, but still a puppy. Soon as it feel some fear or anger, and is given a way out, it coalesces. But when the threat is over, back it goes, barely leaving a trace that it was ever there in the first place.”
Ailes' words did not make Ben feel any better.
“This is what we're dealing with,” he continued, sighing at Ben's near-catatonic state. “All over the country, perhaps all over the world...”
Ben looked up at him, the shivers still afflicting him. He couldn't find the strength to speak, but Ailes seemed pleased that he was at least starting to move again, and shot him a smile. “In simplest of terms; as you've seen, blood is coming to life”
The shivers were starting to ease up, and Ben took deep breaths again, trying to calm his nerves. Ailes rose to his feet and started pacing. “Without the control that people like Steve can assert over the blood, they're killing people that threaten the host.” He caught Ben's gaze at the use of the word 'host', and ceased his pacing. “That's all we are to it,” he explained. “A host.” He broke off eye contact. “Perhaps that's all we've ever been... it's just been biding its time, using us to cook it to just the right temperature, wait for us to fill the planet with our offspring, make ourselves good and fat, and now it's finally bursting out of the cocoon.”
Ailes resumed eye contact with Ben, who had been studying him whilst he looked away. There was something that didn't sit right about the story, but he couldn't tell what it was.
“Although,” Ailes said. “Increasingly, it seems that the blood doesn't need us any longer...”
“What... do you mean?” Ben stammered.
“This is another one of those things I'm afraid words can't quite explain...” he said, reaching for the door.
Ben forced himself to his feet and followed Ailes out. What he was telling him, what they had just shown him, was completely insane. But he had seen it with his own eyes. The creature from his nightmares, out in the real worl
d. And if they had answers, he was going to do whatever it took to learn each and every one.
25
They went back through to the Operations Room, passing each of the stations to a set of desks in the far corner. The analyst there could see how pale and weak Ben was, and offered him her chair.
“Thanks...” he gasped, as he dropped his body into the soft leather. It felt good to sit down. He was still shaken from witnessing the creature being birthed from the fat man's self-harming, and his legs felt like they were trying to carry a weight of lead atop them.
“Bring up the Mathew Street footage,” Ailes instructed.
The analyst leaned over her desk and started clicking around with a mouse, occasionally hitting keys on the keyboard to get to various points in the footage she had been logging.
Finally finding the right file and timecode, she double clicked on it and it started playing in full screen on a second monitor. The view was from up high, a security camera fixed to the side of a building. It was looking down at a cobbled street with a swarm of people walking back and forth, each looking as cold and drunk as the last.
“Spin on...” Ailes sighed.
The analyst did as instructed. The crowds of people dissipated. The only form that was stationary in the frame was a homeless man sitting in a doorway, leaning up against the wall, with a cardboard sign at his feet. His head was down, a ragged beard on his pale, young face, that seemed as though it was matted into his long, thick hair. The footage returned to normal speed, and the man hadn't moved so much as an inch whilst it was sped up.
“He's dead...?” Ben asked, looking back at Ailes, who nodded and indicated to the screen.
There was a shadow under him on the cobbles, a dark patch that grew around him. Ben thought he was watching the dead man lose bowel and bladder control, but the darkness was moving as it expanded. The man became even thinner, as the shadows under him became larger. His lanky body fell over, as the patch beneath his body was free of him, pulling itself from the cobbles, becoming taller and fatter. The shadows receded from the stones, and the creature coalesced into what looked like a massive jelly bean. The front of it seemed to look left, then right, as if planning where to move next. Then, its form changed, stretching out like a slug, crawling across the cobbles. As it came to a drain, it became longer and thinner like a snake, and made its way down into the sewers below the city.
The analyst paused the footage as soon as the snake of blood disappeared beneath the street. “Now you see what we're dealing with...” Ailes said. There was no sign of a smile as he said those words. He was, for the first time since Ben met him, deadly serious.
“That... can't be real...” Ben said.
“Show him The Queens...” Ailes barked at the analyst. He didn't appear in the mood for Ben to be doubting him.
A few mouse clicks and keyboard taps later, and Ben was looking at himself on the monitor, as he was pulled into the alley.
“No...” he said, as he watched himself fight with James Carter. He saw the pixels of the knife slip into his gut and tear a gash up into his abdomen.
Ben's eyes refused to look away, fixed on the blood that flowed from the wound.
The blood that never hit the pavement.
The blood that wound tentacles round the arms and legs of his attacker.
The blood that grew in size and stature as his body fell to the floor.
The blood that formed a large, gelatinous beast that ripped itself open at the top to form massive jaws that clamped over his attacker's head, digging dark teeth into his neck, and sucked him dry of all his vital fluids.
When it was done. The jaws wrenched themselves free, and the lifeless body fell to the floor. The creature was almost twice the size it had been, and returned through the wound into Ben's unconscious body, filling him up, making him fat with not only his own blood, but that of its victim.
The analyst paused the video and Ben stared at his own body, lying there in the alley.
It was true, It was all true. The nightmares were real. And he was the source of those nightmares that had haunted him for the last thirty years.
26
Ben needed time to collect his thoughts, and Ailes seemed all too aware of it. He led him through to a dimly lit meeting room on the other side of the Operations Room and let him sit by himself for a few hours.
At first, he tried to deny it, that what he saw on the security camera footage was computer generated. But those thoughts didn't hold sway, given that he had seen MacGaulty cut his arm open, and seen the creature for himself. That too could have been fake, he tried to tell himself, it could have been a giant screen rather than a window. But he had walked right up to it, seen it for himself, there were no pixels. After debating it back and forth, he came to the conclusion that there was no denying it. The monsters living in the blood were real. All of it was real. And he was infected with whatever this living-blood condition was.
He started thinking about the homeless man, wondering at what point the blood got bored of its host and decided it was time to get out, gushing from the anal cavity, perhaps the urethra too, and slinking away down to the sewers – and how many of those demons were in the sewers... It reminded him of tales of alligators living underground in New York. Except these creatures were real, and yet far less believable. He tried to question how far the knowledge of this infection went, whether it was something Prime Ministers and Presidents were aware of, or whether it was just secret sects of security services that kept this knowledge to themselves, fighting it in the shadows. That led to the ultimate question; how do they fight it?
The door clicked open, and MacGaulty walked through, his jolly, rotund frame bouncing and jiggling with every step. He was beaming from ear to ear, and Ben wondered if he had always been so big, or if he was just full of blood that had been siphoned by the monster that flowed through his veins. As he watched the large man take a seat opposite him, he realised that looking at this happy stranger was making him increasingly aware of his own weight. His trousers had been feeling tight since the night in the alley, his shoes and shirt too. He tried to remember how much blood there was in a human body – was it six pints, or six litres – if it was the latter, then no wonder he was feeling heavy, if the monster living under his skin had drunk its own weight in another man's blood.
“Hard to get your head around, ain't it?” MacGaulty said, with a chuckle. “You doing alright?” His eyes sparkled with genuine concern. The smile that was rustled up in the midst of a thatch of thick beard was so much more genuine than that which Ailes constantly had fixed on his lips, it instantly put Ben at ease.
“Yeah,” he said, taking a deep breath.
“You gone through all the conspiracy theories yet?” he asked, with a deep guffaw. “Who's in on it, who knows, whether it's the story behind the alligators in the sewers and what have you.”
Ben smiled, and a genuine laugh came out. “All of that, yeah.”
“Well, no idea who's in on it, but most of the big governments know, they each have a specialised agency like this one, a Blood Squad, as I like to call it.” He laughed at the name. “And yeah, it's probably what the stories of alligators are based on, not that anyone would believe you if you told them the truth!” He laughed again. Ben just smiled politely, and MacGaulty could see that he was still having a hard time with it all. “Come with me,” he said, rising to his feet. “Do you need a hand?” he offered one to Ben, the bright red line of wet blood still clinging to his wrist.
Ben shrunk back, and Steve pulled his hand away. “Sorry,” he said.
“It's fine...” Ben said, heaving himself out of the chair. ”I'll get used to it...”
MacGaulty held the door open for Ben and took him back through the Operations Room, down the corridor and into the white room.
Ben glanced at the array of sharp implements that were lying on the shelf under the mirrored glass. His stomach took a sharp turn, and he tried to quell the unrest in his gut with more deep br
eathing.
“If you're not ready, you're not ready,” MacGaulty said. “There's no rush, even if our almighty leader Nixon Ailes seems to think we're in a hurry to train you up...”
“Train me up?”
“To be part of the squad,” MacGaulty said, with another genuine smile. “Saving those who can't save themselves and all that.”
“You go out and use this to help people?”
“It's not like anyone else can do it... Guns go right through the haemogoblins, just make 'em angrier and nastier. Only way to kill blood is with blood...”
“That sounds way more profound than it should...” Ben scoffed.
“Don't it just...” A loud laugh bellowed from Steve's bulbous chest. “But it's true. 'Goblins come out of anyone else wild and angry, but with some training, it can be smarter, tactical almost, and then y'have the upper hand...”
Ben felt empowered by the words. The idea of learning how to control the blood, the haemogoblins, to use them to help people, it felt like it could make up for the years of nightmares. MacGaulty could see this on his face and reached towards the shelf, retrieving a scalpel and holding it out to him.
“Give it a go,” he said. “You can do this.”
Ben took the blade from the large man's pudgy fingers and felt its weight.
“Only one thing y'got to remember, and that's to keep a litre of blood in your body. Think of it like a mantra, you know, like Ohmm or what have you? 'Four litres out, one litre in.'”
The gleaming chrome instrument felt lighter than he expected. He ran his thumb against the tip. It sliced through the top few layers of skin like butter, but didn't go deep enough to shed any blood.
“Sharp as hell,” MacGaulty said. “Makes the cut smooth and deep, with a minimal amount of pain. That's why it's the surgeon's favourite, unlike this...” He picked up a small hacksaw and raised the toothy blade to Ben. “Ain't no picnic, I can assure you...”